How to change programmatically non-identity column to identity one?

Question

I have a table with column ID that is identity one. Next I create new non-identity column new_ID and update it with values from ID column + 1. Like this:

new_ID         


        

Answer 1

As far as I know, you have to create a temporary table with the ID field created as IDENTITY, then copy all the data from the original table. Finally, you drop the original table and rename the temporary one. This is an example with a table (named TestTable) that contains only one field, called ID (integer, non IDENTITY):

BEGIN TRANSACTION
GO
CREATE TABLE dbo.Tmp_TestTable
    (
    ID int NOT NULL IDENTITY (1, 1)
    )  ON [PRIMARY]
GO
SET IDENTITY_INSERT dbo.Tmp_TestTable ON
GO
IF EXISTS(SELECT * FROM dbo.TestTable)
     EXEC('INSERT INTO dbo.Tmp_TestTable (ID)
        SELECT ID FROM dbo.TestTable WITH (HOLDLOCK TABLOCKX)')
GO
SET IDENTITY_INSERT dbo.Tmp_TestTable OFF
GO
DROP TABLE dbo.TestTable
GO
EXECUTE sp_rename N'dbo.Tmp_TestTable', N'TestTable', 'OBJECT' 
GO
COMMIT